*Typing*

Great athletes and artists tend to have peculiar habits that don't always immediately make sense. Two individuals that come to mind are Andre Agassi and John Wooden.

Andre Agassi obsessed over how his tennis bag was packed and organized...

“I obsess about my bag. I keep it meticulously organized, and I make no apologies for this anal retentiveness. The bag is my briefcase, suitcase, toolbox, lunchbox, and palette. I need it just right, always. The bag is what I carry onto the court, and what I carry off, two moments when all my senses are extra acute, so I can feel every ounce of its weight. If someone were to slip a pair of argyle socks into my tennis bag, I’d feel it. The tennis bag is a lot like your heart––you have to know what’s in it all times."

John Wooden obsessed over how his plays put on their socks and shoes...

"The first thing I would show players at our initial day of training was how to take a little extra time putting on their shoes and socks properly. The most important part of your equipment is your shoes and socks. You play on a hard floor. So you must have shoes that fit right. And you must not permit your socks to have wrinkles around the little toe––where you generally get blisters––or around the heels."

Agassi's need for a well-organized gym bag and Wooden's methodology for properly putting on one's socks and shoes seems obsessive. But, do these habits condition the athlete to approach their training and play with same level of obsession and care? 

The same tree can look like a dozen different trees depending on your perspective.

Press your nose against the trunk of a tree and you will see only chunky bark. Lie beneath a tree and look up, you will see intersections made up of branches and leaves. Climb the tree, take a seat on one of its outstretched limbs and look down, you will see its roots making ripples in the Earth likes ocean waves. Stand 200 yards back from a tree and you will see a tree that looks less like a tree and more like a large shrub or bush in the distance.

If you feel you're becoming pigeonholed in how you approach your work and life, change your perspective. If you normally workout at the end of the day, try working out at the start of it. If you normally listen to Bob Dylan, try listening to Chet Baker. If you normally start working after a cup of coffee, try skipping the caffeine and working in a sleepy, dream state. If you normally take hot showers, try turning the nozzle to cold. If you normally read self-help books, try cracking open a good piece of fiction.

Impatient people have great difficulty accepting things as they are. To relieve themselves of their anxiety, they make rash decisions in order to give themselves a false sense of control over circumstances that are completely out of their control.

Think about the frustrated driver smashing his horn in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Never in the history of locomotion has a "honk" managed to undo a traffic jam. Never. Yet, despite this truth, pissed off drivers still honk their horns at a standstill. Why? Because it makes them feel like they have some sort of "say" over the unfortunate circumstance they've found themselves in.

We honk constantly in our lives when things don't go our way. We honk because it's easier to honk than to find patience. Patience isn't resisting the urge to honk. This isn't patience. This is impatience with a bit of self-control. Patience is having the awareness to notice life's traffic jams and accepting there is nothing you can do to change them. Patience is letting go and then turning on the radio.

We tell ourselves that we desire deeper relationships and more meaningful work, yet the way in which we live our lives proves otherwise. Rather than making time for lunch with a friend, we have a man on a bicycle deliver a turkey melt so we can scroll through our feeds, alone and uninterrupted. Rather than dedicating deep, focused time to working on an ambitious project that could benefit the world in some small way, we spend hours thinking up content that can help us grow a following that we will inevitably feel disconnected to. We would almost certainly be happier if we poured our time and attention into cultivating a handful of close relationships and mastering a craft. So, why the collective hesitation? We hesitate because this approach to life and work comes with the cost of an audience, the cost of external validation and the cost of making strangers we will never meet jealous of a life we're not really living.

When you labor for long hours with your hands, you develop calluses. This is your skin thickening to protect itself from future wear and tear. While calluses protect your hands from the world's many sharp and jagged edges, they also dull your ability to feel the things you want to feel. You try and run a callused hand along bed linens fresh out the dryer, and it's difficult to feel anything at all. You develop these same calluses on your heart and soul as you experience both pain and suffering on your life's journey. It's your way of protecting yourself from future wear and tear. But, it's worth remembering that calluses cut both ways. The cost of not feeling the bad... is not feeling the good.